Tent- 3 lotJi Fishes. 97 



when the new leaf is ready for their food. But the 

 mother dies when her instinct has completed the 

 relations by which the species is to be continued. 

 While forests of trees invited her by their slender 

 twigs, on no tree did she put an egg that would not 

 the next spring put forth a leaf fitted for the food 

 of her young. 



Many fishes make long journeys to deposit their 

 eggs in phi. i for their progeny ; and when 



that work is done, parental solicitu<; S. The 



parent returns to the ocean, and the young fish, 

 when hatched and grown to the proper size, knows 

 the way to the great deep as well as though its pa- 

 rent had remained to act as guide. Nay more, it 

 knows when and where to go, as by a divine know- 

 ledge. The thousands that go out for the first time 

 find their feeding-grounds, and never forget to return 

 when the time comes for them to deposit their spawn. 

 Some s; \ the cold, and some the warm 



waters. Some seek the fresh streams, and some the 

 salt ocean ; each one seeks the proper condition for 

 its young, which it is never to see, and to which it 

 probably has no conscious relation. The impulse 

 is upon it, and it obeys. It leaves its accustomed 

 haunts, where would seem to be the most natural 

 place for breeding, and seeks out a far distant loca- 

 tion to which instinct guides it. This impulse was 

 given to complete its relation to the world, and is 

 the same evidence of design as the form of the fin 

 or the structure of the gill. The wisdom of the de- 

 sign and the skill of the designer are shown by the 



5 



